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momentarily discombobulated.
    ‘I can’t wait to hear who else is on it,’ she continued.
    ‘I’m afraid that’s confidential information,’ said Rice.
    Mrs Paddon snorted again. ‘Rubbish! Nothing’s confidential on the moor! Let’s see. Mike Haddon the blacksmith. Bill Merchant at the farm shop, Andy Coutt at the Star in Simonsbath, that timber fella – Cooper, is it? I bet he’s on there. Am I right so far?’
    Reynolds shifted and cleared his throat.
    ‘And however many are on there, they’re just the ones John Took
knows
about.’ She laughed again. ‘Arrogant people are always surprised by how much they’re hated, don’t you find?’
    Reynolds certainly
did
find. But he was reluctant to agree with Mrs Paddon when she’d hijacked his interview so completely. John Took’s list was being reduced to garden-fence gossip before his very eyes.
    ‘Well, thank you for your help, Mrs Paddon,’ he said stiffly.
    ‘Oh, don’t take it personally,’ she said. ‘I don’t mean to ruin your day, Mr Reynolds. I’m just saying that if someone has taken that poor girl to get back at her father, it’s probably someone John Took can’t even
remember
offending, that’s all.’
    ‘Do you have anyone particular in mind?’
    The old lady seemed to give it a good deal of thought before shaking her head.
    ‘I wish I could help,’ she sighed. ‘But who knows what goes on in people’s heads?’
     
    ‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ said Rice as they got into the unmarked Peugeot they’d swapped the van for.
    ‘Indeed,’ said Reynolds.
    They sat in silence for a minute or two, outside the twin cottages where eighteen months earlier their investigation had ended in abject failure.
    ‘She seemed almost relieved we were only there about Jess Took,’ mused Rice.
    Reynolds nodded. ‘Must have thought we were there about the murder. She probably feels protective towards Holly.’
    ‘Can’t blame her after what happened, I suppose.’
    Reynolds nodded, then sighed. ‘At least we know now that John Took seems to be universally hated – by more people than are on his list. That’s good news for us. It means it’s looking less and less like a random psycho, and more and more as if Jess was taken by someone in revenge.’
    Rice nodded. ‘And
that
means there’s a good chance of us getting her back alive.’
    Reynolds smiled at Rice and she smiled back. On a case like this, such sparks of optimism were few and far between, and to be enjoyed whenever they appeared.
    Rice switched the engine on and put the car into gear. Reynolds’s phone rang.
    It was the desk sergeant at Taunton.
    ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘I think we’ve got another one.

6
     
    TARR STEPS WAS BEAUTIFUL at any time of the year. Early on a May morning, it was magical. The wide stone slabs that crossed the river at this point looked as if they’d been placed there by storybook giants. Under a tunnel of trees, the sunlight dappling through the broad expanse of dark water made the pebbled riverbed glow like Tiffany glass.
    The only sounds were the river and the songs of a thousand birds.
    And the faint wailing of Mrs Knox up at the car park.
    She’d been wailing when they’d arrived and was still wailing now, almost half an hour later. From his time with Homicide, Reynolds knew she might keep wailing for a good while yet. Quite possibly a lifetime, on and off.
    Very annoying, when he was trying to think.
    PC Colin Walters, the local officer who’d been first on the scene, stood silently beside him as if waiting for instructions, his already weathered complexion further lined with concern.
    Reynolds sighed and turned away from the river, and they both trudged back up the hill to the car park where nine-year-old Pete Knox had vanished from the family car and been replaced – as if by some slick, sick magic – by a square yellow note on the steering wheel.
     
    You don’t love him
.
     
    ‘But we
do
. We
do
love him! What does it
mean
?’ sobbed Mrs